Mass Effect is also amazing. It's North American, but I think it still appeals to fans of JRPGs. Usually, no, WRPG don't appeal as much to JRPG fans. Besides, Mass Effect is more yet another third person shooter with RPG elements (like dialog trees, levels, skills,...). Thus why it appeals to the heavy FPS friendly XB360 user base. And these kind of games usually don't appeal to JRPG fans. In fact, they are completely different style of games. The problem is not WRPG, as XB360 has those and they sell, it's specifically JRPG, that bomb very hard on it. And this despite being published by MS, paid for by MS (in excess of $50 millions for two, including Blue Dragon), made by Mistwalker (Sakaguchi, Uematsu). Seriously, Blue Dragon will struggle to sell 400 000 worldwide, if it even gets there!
The 360 would benefit a bit from filling in gaps that other consoles currently do. More easily said than done. Most of the different genres hits come from Japanese companies, which is why MS needed Japan so much. All the western devs know how to do are FPS/TPS, racers and sports (and not even all of them).
One is fighting games. These are really popular despite not really having "progressed" much in something like a decade That's your flawed opinion though. The Dairantou (Smash Bros) series proves you wrong anyway.
Don't give fans a sub-par Guilty Gear and a Dead or Alive and leave it at that. Give folks a *solid* 2D fighter. Once again, a japanese company, Capcom, may grant your wish.
A Smash Bros competitor couldn't hurt, either, since as fantastic as that series is, it's all too easy to improve on. Yet another flawed opinion. You bet if it was so easy, someone else would have done it already. Instead, the next Dai Rantou is still from the same Nintendo devs, and yes, it's improved in every way.
Another is JRPGs. Even Americans play these, believe it or not (duh, PS2 RPGs sell brilliantly here after all), and you don't need to be a Japanese developer to whip these up. Wrong, wrong and wrong. 2 JRPG were released on the XB360 to date, both bombed hard in western countries, especially in NA. The 3rd one is on its way to bomb in NA too. Surely Americans play these, but not on XB360. That's the worst console to sell your JRPG, or at least that's the actual trend. Perhaps Lost Odyssey will prove this trend wrong. For now, Blue Dragon sold less in NA than in Japan, and Eternal Sonata did the same. And yes, you need to be a Japanese dev to whip these up, or at least understand Japanese culture. I've yet to see a western dev make a decent JRPG. Enchanted Arms is the sole example I know, and it's beyond crap. No JRPG fan would enjoy playing such a bad game.
You just need good art direction and the rest will fall into place assuming the combat system isn't a total disaster. One shoddy attempt with Dragonball Z character design doesn't cut it. Your comment show that you don't understand one thing about JRPG or even Japanese culture, so I understand better how you could say such nonsense earlier. Blue Dragon is a JRPG by japanese devs, with Toriyama Akira character design. This is no DBZ character design, that doesn't mean anything anyway. Besides, DQVIII, which had Toriyama character design, was a big success everywhere, so Blue Dragon has no excuse. BTW, Blue Dragon was to be a direct competitor to DQVIII, that didn't happen though. I guess Sakaguchi is not the legendary director some people make it out to be, and his studio's name, Mistwalker, is tarnished already. There are more JRPG and even japanese SRPG coming for the XB360 though, so don't worry about that genre. Just buy them this time, unless the console gets the stigma that JRPG don't sell on it.
The way things are now are good enough for the 360, but I would rather see less of a total saturation of shooters and rubbish racing games and a bit more diversity in the upcoming game lineup. Things are not good for this console, unless you think FPS/TPS, racing and sports tailored for the NA market, so that the console really sells well there only, is a good thing.
It sounds silly, but Nintendo definately needs to get DVD playback on the Wii going (I heard something about them planning on doing this for North America, although I don't know any details.) DVD playback and first-party rechargable batteries are what Nintendo should (in my opinion, of course) focus on getting out there next. The DVD capability doesn't sound silly, it sounds like nonsense. Even a very simple DVD remote is more complicated than the Wii controller, and thus completely miss the point of the Wii. DVD player for the Wii makes no sense, especially as the strategy is to present a very simple to use videogame console. So no, Nintendo definitely DOESN'T need to get DVD playback, and the sales of the Wii compared to the competition that has DVD playback, should be an indication of that.
Oh and Tetris on the VC. I mean, Bubble Bobble didn't even make it until a couple days ago, that was a bad enough travesty...but not having Tetris in any way, shape, or form on the VC is downright blasphemy. Fortunately you don't run the Nintendo business, or you would put them in the ground. Putting out Tetris, that is one of the biggest success on handhelds, on the Wii VC, doesn't make sense for now. And AFAIK there are no handheld game on the VC yet. Surely that will come with the new service that IIRC has already started in Japan. Releasing Tetris for this service when supply of Wii have caught up demand will make sense, not in the current situation. Nintendo had to cut out advertising in some countries because they sell too fast already, so as a game like Tetris would need to be heavily advertised so that people know it has come back on DS by the Wii, they would need to have Wii on shelves so that it works.
The market seems to be splitting as well. There seems to be a much more distinct break up of whats games ends up on which system. The wii is getting novel party games (doing well everywhere). The PS3 still has a lock on the traditional Japanese franchise (given the world wide sales distribution this will continue to be true, doing well in Japan, poor in the US), while the 360 is getting many more of the American titles (and also doing poorly outside the US, well in the US). That's just not true at all. I'm more interested in the japanese games, and for those, your analysis is plain wrong. First, the PS3 has no lock on the traditional japanese franchise, at all. The "locks" you see are for games which have started being developed 2 years before even the PS3 launch, and can't be wasted. Instead, what we see, is that the traditional Japanese franchises have started jumping ship to the Wii. How could anyone looking at the japanese market miss that? Dragonquest, Monster Hunter, Final Fantasy (Crystal Chronicles admitedly), Biohazard, even the Musou series, are migrating to the Wii. The Wii even gets most of the JRPG that started being developed after its success was apparent in March of this year. Having only 4 JRPG right now, 3 more are announced already for 2008. That becomes 6 more if you count what will probably be ARPG, which I don't count as RPG (FFCC Cristal Bearers, Shikigami No Shiro III, Furai No Shiren 3). The JRPG are particularly important to gauge the console's health in Japan (IMHO). By mid 2008, the Wii will have the most JRPG of this generation of consoles.
The 360 is rather getting the PC like titles, not necessarily american. These are the western devs games basically. Also, the PS3 is getting a lot of new IP. They all bomb hard, which must explain why you missed them. With the same idea, the Wii sells huge numbers of party games, which must explains why you think it mostly get novel party games, which is just not true.
So no, except for the 360 which is 2+ years old, there is no clear split at all.
What this implies is that despite some theories to the contrary, the Wii's MSRP is in fact a major selling point. Not at all! This is a fact that Gamecube sold less than the others last generation, despite a lower price than even the Wii. So the "low" price has very little to do with the Wii's success. Of course, the price is in line with the strategy of Nintendo though, but it's not a major selling point.
I just don't understand how they could not have for seen this shortage. I mean last year the same thing happened and they said then they would be ready for this year. Uh, no! They said some months ago (IIRC October) through their marketing guy, that they would not meet demand, and that you should get a Wii while you could. IIRC it was even posted here.
I have friends, family and co-workers asking me where they can get thier hands on a Wii. It really makes me wonder about the rumors of intentional shorting. From a business point it would make no sense to short your sales. From a marketing point however it's been brilliant. Wii is all the rage and is likely so popular BECAUSE it's hard to get. Uh, no! The Wii has sold more in 1 year than any other console ever did, which is insane, and they increased production to 1.8 M/month in 1 year. Keep in mind this is what the most successful consoles get in their last years of like, when they're hugely popular and low price. The Wii was there less than 1 year after launch, so this is insane too!!
So that's not what I would call "intentional shorting". People that say that are stupid and have zero insight in the videogame industry.
I for one have wanted a Wii for quite some time. It just looks fun! However my impulse to buy has faded over the year+ that I've actually been looking to get one. If I have to wait wait much longer I'm plain not getting it. The PS3 and the Xbox are becoming far closer to the price of the Wii. This is irrelevant. Xbox and PS3 are not in the radar of people who wants a Wii. Not even a chance. These are the same complicated nerd gaming systems in their eyes, no way they want that. BTW, that's why the Wii has been sold out all year long. Even during the summer, when Nintendo hoped to build some stock, they just couldn't.
While I won't buy M$, most people will, including grandpas and grandmas who don't know Mario from Halo. Many households won't buy two systems. Nintendo has self-limited themselves from a bigger piece of the gamesystem pie, which Sony and MS will happily lay claim to. That's wishful thinking at best. Grandpas and grandmas won't play Halo or Mario BTW, except Mario Party 8 perhaps. Nintendo haven't limited themselves of anything except perhaps the risk of a Gamecube era like debacle. They sold more consoles than any other one in 1 year, which is a feat of itself. They also gained market leadership in 10 months despite the Xbox 360 having 1 year headstart, and the only territory where the Wii is not ahead is the USA, and they go on eating the Xbox 360 shares there. None of this is "self-limiting". Especially since the same media go on saying that the Wii is a fad and will die soon (nonsense). And the article is wrong, Nintendo is not losing any money by not selling more Wii, they just lose marketshare gain, at worst. Anyway, getting factories with enough quality takes time, and Nintendo requires high quality for their consoles. The best quality one that was making Xbox 360 now have abandonned the non lucrative Xbox business, and will start making Wii soon.
When was the last time you used windows? What you have wrote just isn't true. When was the last time you used Linux? What you write just isn't true, except for a fresh Windows install perhaps.
The memory footprint for apps such as Word, Excel and Powerpoint are much lower than comparable Linux apps like OpenOffice, AbiWord and KWrite. That would be understandable, as these FOSS apps do much more at start than any MS Office app: loading themes, i18n and l10n, plugins,...
Almost all Linux desktop programs takes longer to cold start than their windows (XP or 2000, I've no experience of Vista) equivalents thanks to the huge amount of dynamic libraries Linux uses. Which won't be noticeable to regular users like me, and when the desktop launches, it starts every app you had running when you logged out. The few apps started anyway (like the calculator) actually start faster now, provided you have a current enough GCC and Glibc, and this despite all these apps compiled with shared libraries. The only time when a Windows desktop or apps beat the Linux ones is after a fresh Windows install. That goes for Firefox too, despite it being an app tailored for Windows.
there is a notable lag between action of the mote and action on screen. partly due to the wi fi partly due to the slowness of the motion sensors. No there is not. Unless you're able to see each of the frames displayed by second, which I doubt. Let me guess, you have a HDTV, right? The only lag seen usually comes from the TV processing. So you have it backwards actually: the more precise your controller is, the more you will detect the lag induced by your HDTV processing. The only time I saw lag on my TV was with the Wii on my HDTV, which now I play in game mode, and I don't see any lag anymore. I got my HDTV after the Wii, and never had any lag on the old CRT one. And keep in mind that my HDTV was advertised with 5 ms refresh, so as most HDTV are advertised for worse, even in game mode, I'm sure they're still laggy.
Given a choice I'd go KB+mouse 100% of the time. Metroid 3, Zelda, Rayman et al have not shown any promise that the wiimote will be better then kb + mouse. Wiimote+chuk is better then dual sticks of course. The wiimote and chuk only beats the keyboard and mouse in catagory: more intuitive to learn. Other then that WASD+mouse has it beat in every way. The sole thing on which I agree is the "more intuitive to learn" part, which is the main goal of controllers on consoles. So the Wiimote + Nunchuk combo wins hands down. Then, precision is better with the Nunchuk than with a keyboard, which should be obvious to you, as the Nunchuk has an analog controller, that keyboard doesn't have, and the Nunchuk is designed to be operated easily without looking at it, while the keyboard is not. The only way in which the Wiimote loses to the mouse, is precision, and not by much, but as it's on the Wii, which doesn't have high resolution like on a PC to begin with, this point is moot, for now at least.
So basically, you hate the Wii and its best games like Metroid Prime 3, and think that's a valid reason why Wii FPS controls are not good? You prefer analog sticks? You may, but this has nothing to do with them being better than a Wiimote + Nunchuk combo. The worst is that you only guess that a Wiimote is better than a sixaxis, when it's obvious! I have both, I can confirm sixaxis is no match to a Wiimote, if only for the pointer.
And you add more nonsense like "is this a good feature or just a unique feature?". FYI, it's both!
Something similar is probably happening here. The Wii could easily move in huge volume but the retailers would want a lower price. As long as: FewWii x HighPrice > LotsAWii x LowPrice you'll have a hard time finding a Wii. That doesn't make any sense at all ! Not now, not one year before. What does not make sense at all, is that 1.8 M Wii a month IS NOT FewWii. No console sold as much as the Wii in its first year, so this business class example is complete BS when applied to the Wii. Especially since no Wal-Mart would say they won't carry Wii, when everyone else sells out of Wii continuously since its launch. Some stores tried that, and even some that stopped carrying Nintendo consoles 5 years ago, have begged to Nintendo to sell Wii, but were supplied late and last of course.
I tend to agree about the video quality. Wii is good enough there - though that'll probably change once more people have HDTV and can get the full benefit of PS3 / 360. That will not change one bit. I played the Uncharted demo the other day, and went back to, *gasp* Fire Emblem (the Gamecube one) on the Wii without any problem at all. I played the Ratchet & Clank demo too, and let me tell you none of these wowed me, at all. So I bet most people don't give a damn about all this image quality thing, as visual quality wise, I'm right in the casual crowd. Actually, I already experienced casuals looking at me playing Heavenly Sword, and they went back to what they were doing, never once being wowed by anything. Seems like only hardcore gamers are wowed by all the technical stuff displayed on current gen games. And yes, I have a 55" 1920x1080 HDTV, and the PS3 is connected by HDMI, the Wii by component. So yes, Wii is good enough, and no, people won't change their view on it even if they get a HDTV. Granted, on my HDTV, SD content looks better than on a SDTV, and I have no lag on the Wii. With a LCD, surely it won't look as good.
What makes me doubt the long-term future of Wii is the CPU and memory capacity. That's not just graphics - more memory and a faster processor allow a more complex world, more detail, more objects, better physics, cleverer AI. Those are the kind of things that can make a good game great, and in time there'll be wonderful things done on PS3 and 360 that couldn't possibly be done on Wii, even if run at lower resolution. People bought more PS2 than any other console. PS2 was the worse of last gen, spec wise. The Wii is more powerful than the more powerful console of last gen. And the PS2 got the biggest games last gen. So, the Wii will have no problem spec wise. Add to that the fact that the resolution is far lesser on the Wii, and that the two other consoles struggle to even display their games in 720p. MOst flagship games on XBox 360 are not even 720p, except on the PS3. And there is one true 1920x1080 game, and it's on the PS3. ONE! And the specs won't prevent the Wii from doing better AI, more complex worlds, more objects, better physics. But they will prevent the Wii from presenting them better on screen.
My bet is that there'll be a Wii 2 coming out in... late '09, early '10? One with enough memory and a fast enough CPU to match or exceed the other machines' physics processing, married to the Wii control system. My bet is it won't happen before 2011. Because with the success it has, and given that developers basically wasted 1-2 years of development time for the Wii, the great games won't be coming before 2008. And also, the success of the Wii means it is there for at least 5 years. Only people that still believe it is a fad can think of a new one released in 2009 or 2010. Even the Gamecube lasted 5 years, and it failed to get a good marketshare.
Then again, I remember believing that the DS was just a stopgap put up to slow down the PSP, and that the real next-generation Gameboy was still under development. Whoops. Some people still believe that...
We all know there's a huge difference between a game like GH that requires you buy the game (and if you don't have one the guitar required to play it), and a freebie game included in a second controller. We all can read your BS, yes! Wii Play is not a freebie, not by any stretch of imagination. Wii Play is at least a $10 game, and you're forced to get a Wiimote with it. If you don't want the game, you can buy a Wiimote for $10 less. And yes, Wii Play is a game (collection). And you talk about honesty?
You don't seem to have a Wii, as no, Wii Play doesn't come when you buy a 2nd controller, that's just not true, at all. You have to buy Wii Play instead of the controller alone, to get it. In this sense, it's worse than Guitar Hero, which you can get without having to buy the guitar.
And overall, Halo 3's sold more then any of them, and so has Gears of War. In fact, the Xbox has 29 games that have topped the 1 million mark. The Wii 9 (I think it's fair not to count Sports or Play in sales). No, it's not fair at all to not count Wii Sports or Wii Play. They are games, and counted as games. So the Wii has 11 by your count. Bundled games are counted too, in the case of the Xbox 360 or PS3. And Wii Sports is actually the game that sold more than any of them all. No wonder the Wii sells so much.
Wii sales for games have not been great. It doesn't matter how big the potential user base is if they've proven to be small in game sales. You're wrong anyway. Wii sales for games have been great on the contrary. And nothing has been proven for the Wii game sales at all, especially for 3rd parties, as there have yet to be great games from them. Mediocre sports games from EA sold very well though, even mediocre titles from Ubisoft. Most multiplatform titles were butchered on the Wii though. But you can't expect Wii owners to buy all the garbage games released for the Wii, garbage that not even the other consoles owners would want. Guitar Hero III showed that Wii owners buy games though.
Galaxy's sold well of course, but that is ultra-flagship. And it wasn't even close to the number of units sold for Halo 3. And I mean not even close. And you managed to completely missed the killer app of the Wii, that sold more than Halo 3, in the USA and worldwide. Yes, that's Wii Sports, and Halo 3 is not even close to the number of units sold. And I mean not even close. Just look at the Nintendo quaterly reports, it's right there, trouncing everything. Worldwide it's even worse. Which explains why people are content with the Wii alone, as it's bundled with it in NA, they don't need other games, especially casual gamers, who can last one year with such a game. I'm even amazed they buy other games.
There's about the same amount of Wii's in house as 360's Not even close. At last NPD count, there were 2,5 millions more XBox 360 in the USA than there was Wii. That makes the Wii at roughly 2/3rd of the XBox 360, not exactly "about the same amount". I see you'll try to grasp any straw to try to prove your wrong point.
Halo 3 had a little better marketing campaign I'm sure. But still, the numbers for Halo 3 in week one were like 6x that of Galaxy. The trends prove that the XBox 360 having a very hardcore population of gamers in NA at least, the sales there are very front loaded, so it's no surprise.
I have several opinions on why, but in the end the why (for us) isn't as important as the numbers. And the numbers say that the Wii should be selling more games then it has, and it can't just be blamed on the lack of great games, because you'd think, given the lack, a truley great game like Galaxy would sell much much more. Grasping at straws still? What a bunch of nonsense, really. Games diversity be damned, make the best 3D platformer, and bam, every Wii owners, even those that don't care about Mario or 3D platformers, will flock to it. Do you really believe your own nonsense? The only reason the PS2 sold so much games was that the library was very diverse. The same has to be true for the Wii, but Nintendo can't do that alone. Taking only the "numbers" in such a subjective market as videogames, is bound to make you fail at predicting anything correctly. The numbers don't say that the Wii should be selling more games at all. The numbers only say that the Wii owners are content with the games they have already, and that means Wii Sports for most of them. 3rd parties will have to put more budget and better teams on the Wii to see sales. How come they still can't master the Wii's capabilities? How come they had no games for the Wii, while the other consoles had games started developing 2 years before launch? They only deserve their lost revenue and profits. And yes, the numbers also prove that getting out 3 months developed cash cows shovelware for a console won't work.
I've not picked up my copy yet (too many other things to finish off first - Persona 3, Mass Effect and Crysis at the top of the list), but it does look astoundingly good. So you basically admit you're part of the problem : PS2 game, XBox 360 game and PC game at highest priority, but you still haven't bought this PS3 game that was released before 2 of the games you cited. It's telling because of what you say after that...
I think, more than anything else, the factor behind the PS3's sales increase will be the fact that it is finally getting some games worth playing. Uh, no! If PS3 owners do like you, it won't change anything at all. And the lot of good games that were released with poor sales, lead to think that a lot of PS3 owners are like you.
For almost a year, Resistance: Fall of Man has been the only really top-notch title on the system, but this is definitely starting to change now. What you say should induce fear to Sony. There was several good games for the PS3 this year, mostly japanese ones, but you managed to forget all of these to remember only a FPS. Man, if FPS is all you want, and most other PS3 owners are like you, SCEA is doomed.
None of the franchises that helped Sony out so much last time have hit the machine yet That's just not true, Musou games and Minna no Golf were released in Japan already. They are bigger movers there than Metal Gear Solid. And if you think MS almost neutralised Sony's Gran Turismo advantage with Forza 2, I believe that's just wishful thinking.
That's a very minor detail. First of all, I can just hit your desktop menu files instead. I can hit.xsessionrc or.xinitrc instead. Second of all, your desktop environment most likely USES THE SHELL to start things, and it is likely that at least some of the shell's files (not all) will still be used. Of course, but the point is that they are files controlled by root or by setuid programs, and you just can't access them with your method, without being root or using setuid programs, so your attempts will fail already. You're basically saying any user on a Linux system can escalate privilege to root like that which is just plain false.
No, I don't mean injecting into su or sudo. I mean injecting into the terminal program. As part of the push for security, the setuid bit has been removed from many of these programs... eliminating the LD_PRELOAD protection. Oops. Wow man, do you do that on purpose ? There's no way for you to be root from an ordinary user, unless you exploit a program running as root, or are promoted root by a setuid one. The setuid is dead with your little trick, only the exploit remaining. You can inject the terminal all you want, as soon as you reach a setuid code, your trick fails immediately. And there's not a lot of legal ways to become root with the shell. Even using pam will make this trick fail.
No shit. Suppose I do. I probably can't use it remotely... until I get into your regular user account. Well OK, but all vulnerabilities do not allow such a thing. Most have an hypothetical way of executing arbitrary code, but no exploit. This vulnerability was fixed weeks ago BTW, so it's very unlikely someone which uses the shell so extensively has not updated its FLAC already. I don't say a vulnerability isn't dangerous or doesn't allow what you say, but accessing a user account with this one is one work that is not so easy already, and escalating to root is another, that requires knowledge that has to be gathered through the first one, and is not an instant given. It's not so easy to gain root privilege illegally from a user account like you try to imply. If it was, it would have been patched long ago, which is what happened already.
That code gets injected into your xterm, gnome-terminal, konsole, eterm, screen, emacs, etc. No it doesn't !!! At least as long as you don't launch any xterm from your gnome-terminal/konsole/eterm/whatever. This little trick would change whatever apps you use that is launched from your shell session, which is just unlikely. But wait, there's more...
You'd better not ever do "su" or "sudo" from a shell in any of them. You wouldn't do that, would you? This is even more nonsense, as your little trick just won't work on a glibc drived system, meaning nearly every Linux OS out there. This was fixed like more than 4 years ago !! Your LD_PRELOAD, containing slashes, will just not work at all and be rejected for suid binaries like su or sudo. And if you don't put slashes, the library will be searched in the trusted paths put in your ld.so.conf. So sorry to destroy your scary FUD. Not to say a rootkit is not possible, but it requires more than a vulnerability fixed years ago.
Do you know what an "input method" is? It's a lovely way to play with your keystrokes, no matter what the app. It's normally used to enter things like Chinese characters... and to pwn you. Except this is not launched from a bash session... at all. This is launched by your desktop environment, itself launched from a desktop manager, itself suid and not launched from your bash session. Just wow at your failed pwn methods though!
BTW, getting into your account is one step closer. Now the attacker is not only inside your firewall, but able to attack setuid binaries and the kernel itself. Just no, you're plain wrong. Kernel is safe as long as you're not root, and setuid binaries are safe too. You have to have an exploit on one of them, and no, LD_PRELOAD is not one.
Any bugs just got exposed. At this point, a local exploit is as good as a remote exploit. Well, I kind of agree, though it's not as simple as you make it out.
I have since bought a 4 gig memory card, and currently have every NES, SNES, Genesis/game gear, game boy games on it as well as a decent amount of GBA and MAME roms. [...]. Unlike many others, I have no plans to actually download any PSP ISO's Let me get this straight : you say the PSP is good because you can play pirated Nintendo and Sega games on it? And you won't pirate PSP games? But you won't buy any either? Do you even know why the PSP is a bomb? No, it's not because it sold 25 M units despite being trounced by the DS. No, that's because Sony uses a loss leader strategy, and lose money on their consoles. Perhaps they don't anymore, but they used to. And they need software sales far more than Nintendo does. But here's the catch: the PSP software are selling very very poorly. This is why the PSP is a bomb, it doesn't sell software, and so Sony loses lots of money from it. And YOU are a part of this problem, as you're the typical problem for them: you buy a PSP, but no Sony licensed software for it. And you're even proud of yourself, which is worse, because you're actually killing the product. The worst is that you accelerate the problem, by buying two other ones and no more software. I bet Sony doesn't want people like you praising their product in this way.
Some other things are telling: you say all these pirated things brought new life to the PSP. Which just means it's a dead product, and even more dead once "modded". Then you go back, nonsensically, to saying the PSP has great games. Uh no it doesn't, you just said it was dead before playing pirated games on it. And no, Sony didn't try to kill homebrew, but piracy, and no, they don't get more money from you, they get less, contrary to your strange belief. Sony doesn't makes its money from selling the console, but from selling the software. BTW, all console makers make more money (if any) from selling software, not the hardware.
If you are into emulation or just plain messing around with your gadgets, the PSP is your best bet as far as portable gaming is concerned Let me fix that for you: If you are into pirating games on your gadgets, the PSP is your best bet as far as portable gaming piracy is concerned. There, reads more in line with what you've written. To think you're even enjoying this is... well, pathetic. You're blatantly killing the product you supposedly love so much, and you're delighted by it.
The 1 year lead is fair comment but the market share is neck and neck, if you take the entire market as a whole. They are also NPD number which include wii play and I think wii sports. Not 100% sure. Some facts : - NPD numbers DO NOT include Wii Sports, but strangely enough, they include bundles for other consoles - The Wii has the lead in worldwide sales, yes, it has passed the XBox 360 lead in less than a year, despite the 1 year lead - The Wii has at least 2 M less sales than XBox 360 in the USA, which is far from being negligeable. The XB360 still has the most marketshare in the USA, and it better, as it is it's sole good market, with the UK
Sharp Aquos LC-42D62U 42" LCD HDTV See, I guessed right. These are the worst set for viewing SD content. SD content have more natural, movie like image, while LCD display are very sharp and unnatural image, which some people prefer, but still, it's different from movie feel and general SD content. The Sony plasma is an old display with very bad logic unit (at most HD Ready to boot, as IIRC they don't do plasma anymore), and it's strange for your Sony RP, as if it's 1080i, that means it's analog (ad not a full HD set either), so it shouldn't have any special treatment to do, and should look better than on a SDTV. Again, even the current best LCD still have the numerous flaws going with the technology, that even the 120 Hz sets can't remove, while inducing others. And seeing a pixel mess is not subjective at all: if you see it, I guess it's there. It shouldn't happen, HD displays with good logic units and well calibrated should look better than a SDTV. I've heard a lot of these horror stories, especially related to the Wii, but the fact is that it never happened at my home. Every SD content just looks better than on my old SDTV.
I'd be interested to know what you think my agenda is? I think I have replied reasonably without acting either as a fanboy of another system or as a unfair critic. I meant that you know about console games, HD, SD,... I'm talking about people that just don't know even which console is what. For these people, a game like Mario Party 8 actually looks better than Heavenly Sword. And no, their jaw doesn't drop when seeing it. Mine neither BTW. Fortunately, I didn't buy the PS3 for the graphics (or I wouldn't play mostly PS2 games on it for now).
The wii has the lowest attach rate of the three systems. Generally it's hardware is moving like hot cakes but it's software is languishing on shelves. Everything except a few first party gems. All multi-platform games sell better in absolute numbers on the 360 in the US. All the lines of defense in one nice paragraph. All flawed. First, the attach rate you talk about doesn't take into account Wii Sports, so it's actually 1 point higher, and no longer the lowest. Then, using attach rate to talk about software sales is just plain nonsense. The sales numbers are what are important to game editors, not attach rate. They care about what they sell, not about how much games the hardware maker sell for each console. Besides, attach rate is typically high at the start of a console life, because mostly hardcore gamers buy it. Then it normally goes down as more casual players buy the console, and they buy less games. The Wii is atypical in the sense that it attracted lots of casual gamers right away, thus the very good but not amazing attach rate less than 1 year after launch. Of course, Wii detractors are quick to forget to count Wii Sports in the attach rate, no need to search why that is. Then, the only games that "languish on shelves" are crappy 3rd party shovelwares for the Wii that no one would buy on any console. It's mostly apparent in the cross-platform titles, that are always destroyed on the Wii. You would think they would "suffer" only a graphics downgrade, but no, it's worse most of the time. Finally, I hope the 360 sells more software than the Wii in the USA, given that it was released 1 year earlier and has a huge lead in market share there.
Definitely depends on the game. I prefer RE4 on the SD TV for the free anti-aliasing. Definitely depends on the set. The only games where I notice some hints of aliasing on my HDTV set are PS2 games like FFXII (even through the PS3 upscaling and antialiasing). Not one of my Gamecube game looks aliased on my set, from Skies of Arcadia to Metroid Prime to Tales of Symphonia. Again, the worst HDTV sets regarding aliasing SD content are LCD. And I guessed well that the problem was aliasing.
Didn't I just complain about it? Using the component cables at 480p Zelda and RE4 are ugly pixelated messes. After playing RE4 for 30 min the three people in the room with me and i were physically ill. My complaints aren't uncommon. You complained, but I was talking of people without an agenda, normal people, causals if you like. So I guessed well: you have a LCD set. These are the common flaws of bad LCD sets, though most are bad. A tiny few don't suffer from mosquito, motion dithering,... There's never been anything like that on my HDTV set, but I've heard it described a lot, and have seen it a lot in stores, which use LCD. What's worse, is that I even saw that with games from XBox 360. Perhaps they were connected through composite, I don't know, but LCD sets are really the worst. So basically, you're blaming the console when the real problem is your TV set.
The wii isn't the be all and end all. It does somethings well (great party machine) does other poorly (solo gaming a bit spotty). It actually does solo gaming perfectly well.
Well, if Nintendo can put out a new console two years from now that is just as good as a PS3 is today and still sell it for only $250, I would think that they were making a pretty smart business move. It doesn't make sense business wise and won't happen, as the Wii isn't even 1 year old. And Nintendo isn't trying to outdo the two others technology wise, I thought it was obvious. I understand better now how MS felt about FOSS, not understanding it. This is the same situation here: people (hardcore gamers I think, or technology aware people) have a very hard time understanding what Nintendo is doing, despite them explaining it several times. Nintendo isn't trying to make a powerhouse, they're trying to sell fun games and the consoles that go with them. They're not drooling at the red ocean, but bathing in the blue one.
I read his statement as "we know that the Wii's graphics will look absolutely dated vs the 360's and PS3's in 2 years or so", and that they want to prepare everyone for releasing a new set of hardware earlier than everyone else, out of cycle. That's a nonsense wishful thinking from hardcore gamers, which doesn't make any business sense at all, and Nintendo has lots of business sense. But I guess this delusion won't disappear until it's proven wrong (happens to be wrong).
Now I say that as a person who bought a Wii for the gameplay and not the graphics, and I don't really have a problem with that. I'll never understand hardcore gamers, but I think that's reciprocal. As for myself and most casuals, they bought the Wii for the games, and nothing else.
I really think this has to be the case because as much money they are making with the DS, I don't think it would make sense to release a new portable and fragment that market. It doesn't make sense with the Wii either, as it's in the exact same situation. Prepare to live with the DS and Wii for many years to come.
In two years? It's already pretty dated. Compare any multi platform game. Exactly, and it sells like hotcakes. So this argument is stupid at best, and only shows fear and insecurity from those spouting it.
They just banked on enough people not caring or too new to video games to know better. That's partly false actually. They banked on the fact that most people don't see the difference with HD (nearly your "not caring"), and that in a game, art direction is far more important than higher resolutions to display beautiful graphics. Besides, I do care to put some HD content on my HDTV set (partly why I bought a PS3) and yet, I bought a Wii first, the PS3 being only recent. I actually bought the HDTV set after the Wii, to replace my old SDTV and have a better picture for the Wii. The Wii actually looks amazing and far better on the HDTV.
Some of the graphics like RE4 or Zelda actually hurt my eyes on an HD set if I haven't slept enough. I hear Metroid does it better, but I'm still not certain if the Wii heralds the end to gaming as I enjoy it or will be the next mainstream platform. Your set must be a pretty bad one, or be pretty badly calibrated, and I bet it's a flat panel LCD too, as these are the worst for SD content. I've yet to see someone complain on any Wii game (480p, so through component) I put on my HD (1080p) display. It's even worse than that: people actually marvel at how well done is a game like Mario Party 8 is and enjoy it a lot, and not a single one marveled at Heavenly Sword playing on the same set (HDMI, 1080p). Because contrary to yours, my HDTV set actually renders SD subjectively better (blacks are worst of course, but everything else is better) than my old SDTV one. The Wii graphics look crisp and sharp on it.
So far the games are either retreats with "waggle" replacing "button mash", or "tedious mini games" collections. I enjoy the extra speed the Wii mote gives when aiming but despise the "waggle" that is mandatory to get a license. A lot of games, like Fire Emblem, prove you wrong, but I guess I shouldn't feed your troll.
I own a HD set too. After reading the nonsense you spout out, I conclude that: - your HD set is really really bad (and must be a LCD, which are the worst for SD content) - your wife is unusually knowledgeable about all this HD thing, and so, not representative at all of the general population - visuals and sound are not unimportant, nobody ever said that apart from trolls. They are secondary to gameplay. Secondary, which is not the same as Unimportant
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Besides, Mass Effect is more yet another third person shooter with RPG elements (like dialog trees, levels, skills,
And these kind of games usually don't appeal to JRPG fans. In fact, they are completely different style of games.
The problem is not WRPG, as XB360 has those and they sell, it's specifically JRPG, that bomb very hard on it.
And this despite being published by MS, paid for by MS (in excess of $50 millions for two, including Blue Dragon), made by Mistwalker (Sakaguchi, Uematsu). Seriously, Blue Dragon will struggle to sell 400 000 worldwide, if it even gets there!
2 JRPG were released on the XB360 to date, both bombed hard in western countries, especially in NA.
The 3rd one is on its way to bomb in NA too. Surely Americans play these, but not on XB360. That's the worst console to sell your JRPG, or at least that's the actual trend. Perhaps Lost Odyssey will prove this trend wrong.
For now, Blue Dragon sold less in NA than in Japan, and Eternal Sonata did the same.
And yes, you need to be a Japanese dev to whip these up, or at least understand Japanese culture.
I've yet to see a western dev make a decent JRPG. Enchanted Arms is the sole example I know, and it's beyond crap.
No JRPG fan would enjoy playing such a bad game. You just need good art direction and the rest will fall into place assuming the combat system isn't a total disaster. One shoddy attempt with Dragonball Z character design doesn't cut it. Your comment show that you don't understand one thing about JRPG or even Japanese culture, so I understand better how you could say such nonsense earlier. Blue Dragon is a JRPG by japanese devs, with Toriyama Akira character design. This is no DBZ character design, that doesn't mean anything anyway.
Besides, DQVIII, which had Toriyama character design, was a big success everywhere, so Blue Dragon has no excuse.
BTW, Blue Dragon was to be a direct competitor to DQVIII, that didn't happen though.
I guess Sakaguchi is not the legendary director some people make it out to be, and his studio's name, Mistwalker, is tarnished already.
There are more JRPG and even japanese SRPG coming for the XB360 though, so don't worry about that genre.
Just buy them this time, unless the console gets the stigma that JRPG don't sell on it. The way things are now are good enough for the 360, but I would rather see less of a total saturation of shooters and rubbish racing games and a bit more diversity in the upcoming game lineup. Things are not good for this console, unless you think FPS/TPS, racing and sports tailored for the NA market, so that the console really sells well there only, is a good thing.
Even a very simple DVD remote is more complicated than the Wii controller, and thus completely miss the point of the Wii.
DVD player for the Wii makes no sense, especially as the strategy is to present a very simple to use videogame console.
So no, Nintendo definitely DOESN'T need to get DVD playback, and the sales of the Wii compared to the competition that has DVD playback, should be an indication of that. Oh and Tetris on the VC. I mean, Bubble Bobble didn't even make it until a couple days ago, that was a bad enough travesty...but not having Tetris in any way, shape, or form on the VC is downright blasphemy. Fortunately you don't run the Nintendo business, or you would put them in the ground.
Putting out Tetris, that is one of the biggest success on handhelds, on the Wii VC, doesn't make sense for now.
And AFAIK there are no handheld game on the VC yet. Surely that will come with the new service that IIRC has already started in Japan.
Releasing Tetris for this service when supply of Wii have caught up demand will make sense, not in the current situation.
Nintendo had to cut out advertising in some countries because they sell too fast already, so as a game like Tetris would need to be heavily advertised so that people know it has come back on DS by the Wii, they would need to have Wii on shelves so that it works.
I'm more interested in the japanese games, and for those, your analysis is plain wrong.
First, the PS3 has no lock on the traditional japanese franchise, at all. The "locks" you see are for games which have started being developed 2 years before even the PS3 launch, and can't be wasted.
Instead, what we see, is that the traditional Japanese franchises have started jumping ship to the Wii.
How could anyone looking at the japanese market miss that? Dragonquest, Monster Hunter, Final Fantasy (Crystal Chronicles admitedly), Biohazard, even the Musou series, are migrating to the Wii.
The Wii even gets most of the JRPG that started being developed after its success was apparent in March of this year.
Having only 4 JRPG right now, 3 more are announced already for 2008. That becomes 6 more if you count what will probably be ARPG, which I don't count as RPG (FFCC Cristal Bearers, Shikigami No Shiro III, Furai No Shiren 3).
The JRPG are particularly important to gauge the console's health in Japan (IMHO).
By mid 2008, the Wii will have the most JRPG of this generation of consoles.
The 360 is rather getting the PC like titles, not necessarily american. These are the western devs games basically.
Also, the PS3 is getting a lot of new IP. They all bomb hard, which must explain why you missed them.
With the same idea, the Wii sells huge numbers of party games, which must explains why you think it mostly get novel party games, which is just not true.
So no, except for the 360 which is 2+ years old, there is no clear split at all.
They said some months ago (IIRC October) through their marketing guy, that they would not meet demand, and that you should get a Wii while you could. IIRC it was even posted here. I have friends, family and co-workers asking me where they can get thier hands on a Wii. It really makes me wonder about the rumors of intentional shorting. From a business point it would make no sense to short your sales. From a marketing point however it's been brilliant. Wii is all the rage and is likely so popular BECAUSE it's hard to get. Uh, no!
The Wii has sold more in 1 year than any other console ever did, which is insane, and they increased production to 1.8 M/month in 1 year.
Keep in mind this is what the most successful consoles get in their last years of like, when they're hugely popular and low price. The Wii was there less than 1 year after launch, so this is insane too!!
So that's not what I would call "intentional shorting". People that say that are stupid and have zero insight in the videogame industry.
These are the same complicated nerd gaming systems in their eyes, no way they want that.
BTW, that's why the Wii has been sold out all year long. Even during the summer, when Nintendo hoped to build some stock, they just couldn't. While I won't buy M$, most people will, including grandpas and grandmas who don't know Mario from Halo. Many households won't buy two systems. Nintendo has self-limited themselves from a bigger piece of the gamesystem pie, which Sony and MS will happily lay claim to. That's wishful thinking at best. Grandpas and grandmas won't play Halo or Mario BTW, except Mario Party 8 perhaps.
Nintendo haven't limited themselves of anything except perhaps the risk of a Gamecube era like debacle.
They sold more consoles than any other one in 1 year, which is a feat of itself. They also gained market leadership in 10 months despite the Xbox 360 having 1 year headstart, and the only territory where the Wii is not ahead is the USA, and they go on eating the Xbox 360 shares there.
None of this is "self-limiting". Especially since the same media go on saying that the Wii is a fad and will die soon (nonsense).
And the article is wrong, Nintendo is not losing any money by not selling more Wii, they just lose marketshare gain, at worst. Anyway, getting factories with enough quality takes time, and Nintendo requires high quality for their consoles. The best quality one that was making Xbox 360 now have abandonned the non lucrative Xbox business, and will start making Wii soon.
The only time when a Windows desktop or apps beat the Linux ones is after a fresh Windows install.
That goes for Firefox too, despite it being an app tailored for Windows.
Let me guess, you have a HDTV, right?
The only lag seen usually comes from the TV processing. So you have it backwards actually:
the more precise your controller is, the more you will detect the lag induced by your HDTV processing.
The only time I saw lag on my TV was with the Wii on my HDTV, which now I play in game mode, and I don't see any lag anymore. I got my HDTV after the Wii, and never had any lag on the old CRT one.
And keep in mind that my HDTV was advertised with 5 ms refresh, so as most HDTV are advertised for worse, even in game mode, I'm sure they're still laggy. Given a choice I'd go KB+mouse 100% of the time. Metroid 3, Zelda, Rayman et al have not shown any promise that the wiimote will be better then kb + mouse. Wiimote+chuk is better then dual sticks of course. The wiimote and chuk only beats the keyboard and mouse in catagory: more intuitive to learn. Other then that WASD+mouse has it beat in every way. The sole thing on which I agree is the "more intuitive to learn" part, which is the main goal of controllers on consoles.
So the Wiimote + Nunchuk combo wins hands down.
Then, precision is better with the Nunchuk than with a keyboard, which should be obvious to you, as the Nunchuk has an analog controller, that keyboard doesn't have, and the Nunchuk is designed to be operated easily without looking at it, while the keyboard is not.
The only way in which the Wiimote loses to the mouse, is precision, and not by much, but as it's on the Wii, which doesn't have high resolution like on a PC to begin with, this point is moot, for now at least.
So basically, you hate the Wii and its best games like Metroid Prime 3, and think that's a valid reason why Wii FPS controls are not good?
You prefer analog sticks? You may, but this has nothing to do with them being better than a Wiimote + Nunchuk combo.
The worst is that you only guess that a Wiimote is better than a sixaxis, when it's obvious!
I have both, I can confirm sixaxis is no match to a Wiimote, if only for the pointer.
And you add more nonsense like "is this a good feature or just a unique feature?". FYI, it's both!
FewWii x HighPrice > LotsAWii x LowPrice
you'll have a hard time finding a Wii. That doesn't make any sense at all ! Not now, not one year before.
What does not make sense at all, is that 1.8 M Wii a month IS NOT FewWii.
No console sold as much as the Wii in its first year, so this business class example is complete BS when applied to the Wii.
Especially since no Wal-Mart would say they won't carry Wii, when everyone else sells out of Wii continuously since its launch. Some stores tried that, and even some that stopped carrying Nintendo consoles 5 years ago, have begged to Nintendo to sell Wii, but were supplied late and last of course.
So yes, Wii is good enough, and no, people won't change their view on it even if they get a HDTV. Granted, on my HDTV, SD content looks better than on a SDTV, and I have no lag on the Wii. With a LCD, surely it won't look as good. What makes me doubt the long-term future of Wii is the CPU and memory capacity. That's not just graphics - more memory and a faster processor allow a more complex world, more detail, more objects, better physics, cleverer AI. Those are the kind of things that can make a good game great, and in time there'll be wonderful things done on PS3 and 360 that couldn't possibly be done on Wii, even if run at lower resolution. People bought more PS2 than any other console. PS2 was the worse of last gen, spec wise. The Wii is more powerful than the more powerful console of last gen. And the PS2 got the biggest games last gen. So, the Wii will have no problem spec wise.
Add to that the fact that the resolution is far lesser on the Wii, and that the two other consoles struggle to even display their games in 720p. MOst flagship games on XBox 360 are not even 720p, except on the PS3.
And there is one true 1920x1080 game, and it's on the PS3. ONE!
And the specs won't prevent the Wii from doing better AI, more complex worlds, more objects, better physics. But they will prevent the Wii from presenting them better on screen. My bet is that there'll be a Wii 2 coming out in... late '09, early '10? One with enough memory and a fast enough CPU to match or exceed the other machines' physics processing, married to the Wii control system. My bet is it won't happen before 2011. Because with the success it has, and given that developers basically wasted 1-2 years of development time for the Wii, the great games won't be coming before 2008.
And also, the success of the Wii means it is there for at least 5 years. Only people that still believe it is a fad can think of a new one released in 2009 or 2010. Even the Gamecube lasted 5 years, and it failed to get a good marketshare. Then again, I remember believing that the DS was just a stopgap put up to slow down the PSP, and that the real next-generation Gameboy was still under development. Whoops. Some people still believe that
Wii Play is not a freebie, not by any stretch of imagination. Wii Play is at least a $10 game, and you're forced to get a Wiimote with it. If you don't want the game, you can buy a Wiimote for $10 less.
And yes, Wii Play is a game (collection).
And you talk about honesty?
You don't seem to have a Wii, as no, Wii Play doesn't come when you buy a 2nd controller, that's just not true, at all.
You have to buy Wii Play instead of the controller alone, to get it.
In this sense, it's worse than Guitar Hero, which you can get without having to buy the guitar.
Bundled games are counted too, in the case of the Xbox 360 or PS3.
And Wii Sports is actually the game that sold more than any of them all. No wonder the Wii sells so much.
And nothing has been proven for the Wii game sales at all, especially for 3rd parties, as there have yet to be great games from them. Mediocre sports games from EA sold very well though, even mediocre titles from Ubisoft.
Most multiplatform titles were butchered on the Wii though.
But you can't expect Wii owners to buy all the garbage games released for the Wii, garbage that not even the other consoles owners would want.
Guitar Hero III showed that Wii owners buy games though. Galaxy's sold well of course, but that is ultra-flagship. And it wasn't even close to the number of units sold for Halo 3. And I mean not even close. And you managed to completely missed the killer app of the Wii, that sold more than Halo 3, in the USA and worldwide.
Yes, that's Wii Sports, and Halo 3 is not even close to the number of units sold. And I mean not even close.
Just look at the Nintendo quaterly reports, it's right there, trouncing everything. Worldwide it's even worse.
Which explains why people are content with the Wii alone, as it's bundled with it in NA, they don't need other games, especially casual gamers, who can last one year with such a game. I'm even amazed they buy other games. There's about the same amount of Wii's in house as 360's Not even close. At last NPD count, there were 2,5 millions more XBox 360 in the USA than there was Wii. That makes the Wii at roughly 2/3rd of the XBox 360, not exactly "about the same amount".
I see you'll try to grasp any straw to try to prove your wrong point. Halo 3 had a little better marketing campaign I'm sure. But still, the numbers for Halo 3 in week one were like 6x that of Galaxy. The trends prove that the XBox 360 having a very hardcore population of gamers in NA at least, the sales there are very front loaded, so it's no surprise. I have several opinions on why, but in the end the why (for us) isn't as important as the numbers. And the numbers say that the Wii should be selling more games then it has, and it can't just be blamed on the lack of great games, because you'd think, given the lack, a truley great game like Galaxy would sell much much more. Grasping at straws still? What a bunch of nonsense, really.
Games diversity be damned, make the best 3D platformer, and bam, every Wii owners, even those that don't care about Mario or 3D platformers, will flock to it. Do you really believe your own nonsense?
The only reason the PS2 sold so much games was that the library was very diverse. The same has to be true for the Wii, but Nintendo can't do that alone.
Taking only the "numbers" in such a subjective market as videogames, is bound to make you fail at predicting anything correctly.
The numbers don't say that the Wii should be selling more games at all.
The numbers only say that the Wii owners are content with the games they have already, and that means Wii Sports for most of them.
3rd parties will have to put more budget and better teams on the Wii to see sales.
How come they still can't master the Wii's capabilities? How come they had no games for the Wii, while the other consoles had games started developing 2 years before launch?
They only deserve their lost revenue and profits. And yes, the numbers also prove that getting out 3 months developed cash cows shovelware for a console won't work.
It's telling because of what you say after that
And if you think MS almost neutralised Sony's Gran Turismo advantage with Forza 2, I believe that's just wishful thinking.
This little trick would change whatever apps you use that is launched from your shell session, which is just unlikely.
But wait, there's more
This was fixed like more than 4 years ago !! Your LD_PRELOAD, containing slashes, will just not work at all and be rejected for suid binaries like su or sudo.
And if you don't put slashes, the library will be searched in the trusted paths put in your ld.so.conf.
So sorry to destroy your scary FUD. Not to say a rootkit is not possible, but it requires more than a vulnerability fixed years ago. Do you know what an "input method" is? It's a lovely way to play with your keystrokes, no matter what the app. It's normally used to enter things like Chinese characters... and to pwn you. Except this is not launched from a bash session... at all. This is launched by your desktop environment, itself launched from a desktop manager, itself suid and not launched from your bash session. Just wow at your failed pwn methods though! BTW, getting into your account is one step closer. Now the attacker is not only inside your firewall, but able to attack setuid binaries and the kernel itself. Just no, you're plain wrong. Kernel is safe as long as you're not root, and setuid binaries are safe too. You have to have an exploit on one of them, and no, LD_PRELOAD is not one. Any bugs just got exposed. At this point, a local exploit is as good as a remote exploit. Well, I kind of agree, though it's not as simple as you make it out.
Do you even know why the PSP is a bomb? No, it's not because it sold 25 M units despite being trounced by the DS.
No, that's because Sony uses a loss leader strategy, and lose money on their consoles. Perhaps they don't anymore, but they used to.
And they need software sales far more than Nintendo does. But here's the catch: the PSP software are selling very very poorly.
This is why the PSP is a bomb, it doesn't sell software, and so Sony loses lots of money from it.
And YOU are a part of this problem, as you're the typical problem for them: you buy a PSP, but no Sony licensed software for it.
And you're even proud of yourself, which is worse, because you're actually killing the product.
The worst is that you accelerate the problem, by buying two other ones and no more software.
I bet Sony doesn't want people like you praising their product in this way.
Some other things are telling: you say all these pirated things brought new life to the PSP. Which just means it's a dead product, and even more dead once "modded".
Then you go back, nonsensically, to saying the PSP has great games. Uh no it doesn't, you just said it was dead before playing pirated games on it.
And no, Sony didn't try to kill homebrew, but piracy, and no, they don't get more money from you, they get less, contrary to your strange belief.
Sony doesn't makes its money from selling the console, but from selling the software. BTW, all console makers make more money (if any) from selling software, not the hardware. If you are into emulation or just plain messing around with your gadgets, the PSP is your best bet as far as portable gaming is concerned Let me fix that for you: If you are into pirating games on your gadgets, the PSP is your best bet as far as portable gaming piracy is concerned.
There, reads more in line with what you've written.
To think you're even enjoying this is... well, pathetic. You're blatantly killing the product you supposedly love so much, and you're delighted by it.
- NPD numbers DO NOT include Wii Sports, but strangely enough, they include bundles for other consoles
- The Wii has the lead in worldwide sales, yes, it has passed the XBox 360 lead in less than a year, despite the 1 year lead
- The Wii has at least 2 M less sales than XBox 360 in the USA, which is far from being negligeable. The XB360 still has the most marketshare in the USA, and it better, as it is it's sole good market, with the UK Sharp Aquos LC-42D62U 42" LCD HDTV See, I guessed right. These are the worst set for viewing SD content. SD content have more natural, movie like image, while LCD display are very sharp and unnatural image, which some people prefer, but still, it's different from movie feel and general SD content.
The Sony plasma is an old display with very bad logic unit (at most HD Ready to boot, as IIRC they don't do plasma anymore), and it's strange for your Sony RP, as if it's 1080i, that means it's analog (ad not a full HD set either), so it shouldn't have any special treatment to do, and should look better than on a SDTV.
Again, even the current best LCD still have the numerous flaws going with the technology, that even the 120 Hz sets can't remove, while inducing others.
And seeing a pixel mess is not subjective at all: if you see it, I guess it's there. It shouldn't happen, HD displays with good logic units and well calibrated should look better than a SDTV.
I've heard a lot of these horror stories, especially related to the Wii, but the fact is that it never happened at my home. Every SD content just looks better than on my old SDTV. I'd be interested to know what you think my agenda is? I think I have replied reasonably without acting either as a fanboy of another system or as a unfair critic. I meant that you know about console games, HD, SD,
And no, their jaw doesn't drop when seeing it. Mine neither BTW.
Fortunately, I didn't buy the PS3 for the graphics (or I wouldn't play mostly PS2 games on it for now).
First, the attach rate you talk about doesn't take into account Wii Sports, so it's actually 1 point higher, and no longer the lowest. Then, using attach rate to talk about software sales is just plain nonsense. The sales numbers are what are important to game editors, not attach rate. They care about what they sell, not about how much games the hardware maker sell for each console. Besides, attach rate is typically high at the start of a console life, because mostly hardcore gamers buy it. Then it normally goes down as more casual players buy the console, and they buy less games. The Wii is atypical in the sense that it attracted lots of casual gamers right away, thus the very good but not amazing attach rate less than 1 year after launch.
Of course, Wii detractors are quick to forget to count Wii Sports in the attach rate, no need to search why that is.
Then, the only games that "languish on shelves" are crappy 3rd party shovelwares for the Wii that no one would buy on any console. It's mostly apparent in the cross-platform titles, that are always destroyed on the Wii. You would think they would "suffer" only a graphics downgrade, but no, it's worse most of the time.
Finally, I hope the 360 sells more software than the Wii in the USA, given that it was released 1 year earlier and has a huge lead in market share there. Definitely depends on the game. I prefer RE4 on the SD TV for the free anti-aliasing. Definitely depends on the set. The only games where I notice some hints of aliasing on my HDTV set are PS2 games like FFXII (even through the PS3 upscaling and antialiasing). Not one of my Gamecube game looks aliased on my set, from Skies of Arcadia to Metroid Prime to Tales of Symphonia. Again, the worst HDTV sets regarding aliasing SD content are LCD. And I guessed well that the problem was aliasing. Didn't I just complain about it? Using the component cables at 480p Zelda and RE4 are ugly pixelated messes. After playing RE4 for 30 min the three people in the room with me and i were physically ill. My complaints aren't uncommon. You complained, but I was talking of people without an agenda, normal people, causals if you like.
So I guessed well: you have a LCD set. These are the common flaws of bad LCD sets, though most are bad. A tiny few don't suffer from mosquito, motion dithering,
So basically, you're blaming the console when the real problem is your TV set. The wii isn't the be all and end all. It does somethings well (great party machine) does other poorly (solo gaming a bit spotty). It actually does solo gaming perfectly well.
And Nintendo isn't trying to outdo the two others technology wise, I thought it was obvious.
I understand better now how MS felt about FOSS, not understanding it. This is the same situation here: people (hardcore gamers I think, or technology aware people) have a very hard time understanding what Nintendo is doing, despite them explaining it several times.
Nintendo isn't trying to make a powerhouse, they're trying to sell fun games and the consoles that go with them.
They're not drooling at the red ocean, but bathing in the blue one.
But I guess this delusion won't disappear until it's proven wrong (happens to be wrong). Now I say that as a person who bought a Wii for the gameplay and not the graphics, and I don't really have a problem with that. I'll never understand hardcore gamers, but I think that's reciprocal.
As for myself and most casuals, they bought the Wii for the games, and nothing else. I really think this has to be the case because as much money they are making with the DS, I don't think it would make sense to release a new portable and fragment that market. It doesn't make sense with the Wii either, as it's in the exact same situation.
Prepare to live with the DS and Wii for many years to come.
Besides, I do care to put some HD content on my HDTV set (partly why I bought a PS3) and yet, I bought a Wii first, the PS3 being only recent.
I actually bought the HDTV set after the Wii, to replace my old SDTV and have a better picture for the Wii. The Wii actually looks amazing and far better on the HDTV. Some of the graphics like RE4 or Zelda actually hurt my eyes on an HD set if I haven't slept enough. I hear Metroid does it better, but I'm still not certain if the Wii heralds the end to gaming as I enjoy it or will be the next mainstream platform. Your set must be a pretty bad one, or be pretty badly calibrated, and I bet it's a flat panel LCD too, as these are the worst for SD content.
I've yet to see someone complain on any Wii game (480p, so through component) I put on my HD (1080p) display.
It's even worse than that: people actually marvel at how well done is a game like Mario Party 8 is and enjoy it a lot, and not a single one marveled at Heavenly Sword playing on the same set (HDMI, 1080p).
Because contrary to yours, my HDTV set actually renders SD subjectively better (blacks are worst of course, but everything else is better) than my old SDTV one. The Wii graphics look crisp and sharp on it. So far the games are either retreats with "waggle" replacing "button mash", or "tedious mini games" collections. I enjoy the extra speed the Wii mote gives when aiming but despise the "waggle" that is mandatory to get a license. A lot of games, like Fire Emblem, prove you wrong, but I guess I shouldn't feed your troll.
I own a HD set too. After reading the nonsense you spout out, I conclude that:
- your HD set is really really bad (and must be a LCD, which are the worst for SD content)
- your wife is unusually knowledgeable about all this HD thing, and so, not representative at all of the general population
- visuals and sound are not unimportant, nobody ever said that apart from trolls. They are secondary to gameplay. Secondary, which is not the same as Unimportant